Dance of the Contractors

I think sometimes working with contractors is like dancing with a partner who doesn't really like to dance. Or maybe just not to this song...

The drill slowed when it hit something in the wall.

Worried he was drilling into a pipe, my husband could not go on and came down off the ladder. The curtain rod in our first house would not be installed that day. He said we should call someone.

Now, I have no background in construction. Yet I reasoned that water pipes weren’t likely to be in an exterior wall and suggested that resistance was from a “stud”.

the only meaning of "stud" that I could clearly visualize

A "stud".

I knew the word had two meanings, and though I could only clearly visualize one of them...

...I guessed that the other could anchor a curtain rod.

But lacking any first-hand knowledge, I didn’t want to be the one to bring the house down with ignorant, misplaced drilling.

So I hired our very first contractor to put up a curtain rod, and a few weeks later watched him do it, using the very stud my husband had found, and fled from.

Since then I’ve hired a variety of contractors, with a variety of outcomes –even after checking “references”.  Just remember:  A contractor’s most reliable references are definitely not their relatives.

So here’s what I think:

I think working with contractors is kind of like dancing with a partner who doesn’t really like to dance.

In the first part of the dance the contractor tries to convince you he can’t dance, or at least not to this song.

It starts when you call, but no one answers their phone, and maybe 1 in 8 will return your call, even after you’ve left several very nice phone messages. If you do get a live conversation, you may hear what I call the “Goldilocks” loophole -- through which the contractor will try to escape from dancing with you:

This is because your job is either:

·      too big

·      too small,

·      or somehow just not a good fit  --for his narrow and well-defined sweet spot of expertise.

And if you manage to get someone to agree to estimate, it always requires an in-person visit.

This is FIRST POSITION in the dance of the contractors: No matter how basic the job is, or how well you articulate it, they have to come hava look. Even if it is just to determine that they cannot, will not, take the job.

The next steps of the dance go like this:

After a few date changes, the contractor shows up and backs his diesel-fuming monster truck into the driveway.

Backing-in seems to be a requirement of the trades. I imagine it’s like holding onto the barre in ballet: for its steadying effect, while moving one foot slightly forward into Second Position. So that just in case the shit goes really bad: Electricity flames out of control or toilets explode with flying excrement due to a misplaced circuit, flange or gasket…

...an idling, backed-in truck offers the security of a one-foot-out-the-door fast getaway.

Next, the contractor will talk for at least a half-hour, pacing while he surveys the problem, with some head-shaking, under-the-breath muttering, and taking a call or two on their cell phone. Choreographers and directors alike will recognize this as “blocking”.

At some point I’ll ask: “How long will the job take?”

Contractor: “Not long, maybe a ½ hour.”

Now, I’m thinking he just spent as much time talking about the job as doing the job itself will take…

So of course I have to ask: “Any chance you could get started today?”

Contractor: “ohhh I don’t have the right (tools/bits/parts...) in the truck” (a truck which could easily hold the contents of my house and three of my neighbors’).

Right. He didn’t bring the right dance shoes.

And then offers: “I can get to it maybe in 2 or 3 weeks.”

So even if your job fits, it sits.

Why? Because it’s a dance. They step back as you step forward.

Here are just a few of the moves I’ve seen from contractors:

• There was the young, smooth-talking painter who agreed to the hard deadline of our job, began work, and then chasséd away on an unannounced vacation, returned asking for more money for cash flow problems, and then walked off the dance floor with it, having only barely begun the job. The dance term chassé means of course "to chase", and we chased him for months..

• And the fancy two-step a highly recommended tile guy did to buy himself time. First he wrote out the specs for me to order the tile. And when he finally arrived to start our job, said he couldn’t begin work without the trim (which he cleverly left out of his written specs), and told me to order it, as he pirouetted off, stage right.

• Or the employee from the well-known hardwood floor company who walked in and immediately announced he couldn’t begin work because… the repair floor boards that were out in the garage weren’t at room temperature. When I surprised him and pulled additional boards –all nice and warm--from the kitchen closet, he whined that our job was going to make him late for an “interview for another job” as he grapevined out the door. So I changed partners and finished that dance with the company owner --who performed on pointe.

I used to believe in getting three estimates. But given what I’ve seen, I’m not sure that’s a good indicator any more of how to choose a partner:

• Recently, one contractor spent 45 minutes talking and looking, but never sent a bid.

• The second one, with glowing references, sent a high estimate but isn’t available until next year.

• The third one sent a great estimate that same day and he’s available immediately...?

And so as he steps forward--ready to dance-- I step back, wondering:

What’s wrong with him?

Why isn’t anyone else dancing with him?